Ben Wright, Atlas Advertising's CEO, presents "Understanding the Product" at the IEDC Marketing and Attraction Conference in Madison, Wisconsin in October 2012

1. IEDC Marketing and
Attraction: Understanding
the Product
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2. Who Are My Heroes?
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3. Questions We Will Answer
1. What is the purpose of knowing everything about my community?
2. What data should I measure about my community?
3. Who are the audiences for the data I produce?
4. What formats do those consumers want information in?
5. How to use data to position your community
6. What data should I measure about my organization?
7. How should I go about selecting targeted industries?
8. Who in the organization should do this work?
9. What tools make it easier for me?
10. What should I outsource versus do in house?
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4. Download the slides, listen to the
video, continue the dialogue
• Continue the Conversation:
– Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AtlasAd
– Tweet questions using hashtag #AskAtlas
– Join Next Gen Economic Development Marketers
LinkedIn Group
• View and share the slides with your
colleagues (available now):
http://bit.ly/fQB6hC
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5. How To Vote via Texting
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6. 6

7. What is the purpose of
knowing everything about
my community?
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8. A model for high performance
economic development
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13. What hasn‟t changed:
To make a difference, we have to
serve companies face to face.
Our main value is the information we
possess.
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14. What has changed:
The ways we start conversations
have changed forever.
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15. What High Performance Economic
Development Is
• It is the first measurement of
the outcomes (Inquiries,
jobs, capital investment) that
EDO‟s create on this scale.
• It proves the ways we make
a difference, and in some
cases, the ways we don‟t.
• It can help drive your
strategic and marketing
planning using actual
outcomes, instead of
activities, using national
benchmarks as your guide.
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16. What Data Should I
Measure about my
Community?
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17. Don‟t reinvent the wheel – start
where others have left off
Demographics Four year colleges Labor Union
information
Labor Force Community colleges Transportation assets
Employment by Vocational/ technical Real estate
industry centers occupancy
New companies to the Payroll costs by Utilities
area industry
Military bases Average salary by Environmental
occupation information
Research institutions Workers comp costs Government
International resources Quality of Life Available Real Estate
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http://www.iedconline.org/?p=data_standards

18. Who Are the Audiences for
the Data I Produce?
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19. 19

20. Consider your audience when
spending your time:
1. Site selectors and companies value workforce, labor, cost,
and other comparative data.
2. Your investors, stakeholders, and other local businesses
want to know about the performance of the economy over
time.
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21. Tracey Hyatt Bosman
1. Based in Chicago, IL
2. Former economic developer
3. Specializes in renewable
energy and data centers
Midwest Practice Leader – Biggins, Lacy and
Shapiro
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22. What Tracey needs and
doesn‟t need
What We Need What We Don‟t
• Contact information • General labor statistics
• Incentive programs • Secondary source wage
• Tax rates information
• Recent announcements • Real estate listings
• Industry-targeted info • Rankings
• Map of your territory • Distance to other major
• Largest employers cities
• Area colleges and
universities
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23. Keith Gendreau
• Based in Cushman & Wakefield‟s
headquarters in New York City, NY,
moving to Minneapolis this fall
• Consulting Manager within C&W‟s
Global Business Consulting division
• Geographer by Trade. Master‟s Degree
in Economic Development
• Very specialized skills in GIS analysis
and tools
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24. Site Selection Trends
• The location strategy process has remained largely unchanged over the past decade. What
has changed are the timeframe and tools for which to deliver results and recommendations.
Today, more so than ever, clients are:
• Making decisions quickly and efficiently;
• Seeking available buildings meeting specific requirements;
• Cost sensitive (labor, utilities, freight, occupancy, incentives offset); and,
• Interested in the „bottomline‟ operating cost vs. non-cost environment classic tradeoff.
• General Trends
• C&W Business Consulting has experienced a significant uptick in site selection activity
by foreign companies seeking to manufacture products locally in the United States vs.
abroad
• Exchange rates and rising transportation costs a possible contributing factor to foreign
interest
• Continued revelation of spatial integration of data
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25. Decision Support Data
Sources and Tools
• C&W Global Business Consulting maintains the most up to date demographic databases
and spatial analysis tools to execute projects of this type.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Mapping
Comprehensive demographic and segmentation
database
Comprehensive Industry employment forecast, population
mobility data
Location specific wage database
Spatial and non-spatial data integration
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C&W Team, 150+ years of specific relevant experience

26. Case Study 1:
Workforce Analysis
• Situation:
– Headquarters relocation from Midwest
– Includes a new showcase manufacturing facility
– Critical international air service requirement
• Once 2 priority metros were identified, a sub-market location screen was conducted:
– Headquarters
• “Cluster” analysis focused on satisfying executive lifestyles including, quality-
of-life, commute times, and airport access.
– Manufacturing Facility
• Facility must reside within 45-60 minutes of the new headquarters. Human
resources driven, other key considerations include sites/buildings and
incentives.
• Results support:
• Site recommendations for due-diligence field study (define top two
headquarters and three manufacturing in order of preference)
• Viability of least preferred markets
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• Likelihood and magnitude of incentive benefits

27. Case Study 1:
Workforce Analysis
• To identify best HQ submarkets,
the analysis focused on resident
characteristics aligned with
relocatee demographics and
quality-of-life indicators.
• Plotting of “executive lifestyle
clusters” (green shading) within
a 60-minute drivetime of
Philadelphia airport.
• Client expressed interest in
considering the Navy Shipyard
as a possible co-location
scenario for both manufacturing
and headquarters operations.
• Radnor submarket & vicinity
identified as optimally positioned
for maximum regional
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commutable executive housing
options.

28. Your local stakeholders want your
opinion and analysis
1. What are the trends in
the local economy?
2. What does this data
mean?
3. What does it mean for
their business?
LAEDC: 25,000 person mailing
list, updates sent weekly
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29. What Formats Do Those
Consumers Want
Information in?
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30. Sample Formats and Delivery
Data Delivery Format
method
Workforce data Online, in GIS In GIS system,
system exporting to excel
Employment data Online Downloadable
Excel
Cost data Online Downloadable
Excel
Infrastructure Online GIS maps and
illustrated maps
Commentary on Online, in print Narrative
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the economy

31. What Data Should I
Measure About My
Organization?
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32. Key organizational data
(for internal use)
1. Interactions with the organization
a. Web visits
b. Inquiries and companies served
2. Impact of the organization
a. Jobs created/influenced
b. Capital investment
3. Other operating metrics
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33. Benchmark your community‟s activity
against similarly sized communities
http://Atlas2012BenchmarkingSurvey.questionpro.co
m
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34. Sample report
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35. How Should I go About
Selecting Targeted
Industries?
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37. How to select targeted industries
•The easy way: Use the industries that states and
regions you are in have selected
•The hard way: Do your own research, and do
positioning statements for each industry. If you
have no differentiators for an industry, don‟t select
the industry.
•The expensive way: Hire a firm for a 3-9 month
study
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38. DIY: Foundation for positioning
1. Decide on your audience
2. Understand their drivers and needs
3. Understand who your comparison communities
are
4. Do the research on yourself and the other
communities
5. Find out the one or two unique elements of your
community
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39. How to use data to position your
community competitively
Positioning is answering the
following questions: For: Aerospace, Biomedical
location decision makers
Who are my target customers? Who need: Highly technical
What are their needs? workforce, competitive labor
What type of community are costs, and access to intl. airport
we in their minds? Houston is: a large region
What needs of theirs do we That offers: Workforce trained
meet? by NASA and the Texas Medical
What needs of theirs do we Center, and a cost of doing
meet better than other business that is 5% below the
communities? national average
Unlike: Other large cities,
Houston has a larger workforce
pool at costs as much as 30%
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less than comparable coastal
communities.

40. Who in the Organization
Should Do This Work?
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42. Roles in the organization (in house)
Title Research they Key audience
access served
Executive All All, including investors,
stakeholders
Business Product research Relocating, and
Development Expanding companies
Marketing Product research Relocating, and
Expanding companies
Research All Internal and external
audiences
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43. What Tools Make it
Easier For Me?
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44. What tools are available to you to
understand your community?
Government Sources Private sources
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45. Tools to gather organizational data
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46. What Should I Outsource
Versus do In House?
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47. What should I outsource vs. do
myself?
Data Do in house Outsource
Comparative X
product data
Time series X
product data and
narrative
Organizational X
data
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48. Contact Atlas
Contact information:
1128 Grant Street
Denver, CO 80203
Contact: Ben Wright
t: 303.292.3300 x 210
benw@Atlas-Advertising.com
www.Atlas-Advertising.com
LinkedIn Profile | LinkedIn Group | Twitter
| Blog | Slidespace
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